So my TV came with two pairs of these:

They are boring. Passive 3D glasses, two lenses polarized differently to allow you to see a 3D image. Same exact design as the glasses you get from the movie theater, of which I still have two pairs (after throwing away the horde that I had since I never throw them away).

These steampunky goggles are eight bucks and some change:

They look awesome.

The lenses can also be replaced:

My plan: take a pair of the cheapy theater glasses, remove the lenses, and cut them into the right size to fit into the goggles. The lenses appear to be a thin film, so it shouldn't be too complicated. Projected result: Creating a more awesome looking 3D viewing apparatus. Plus the original lenses can be put back in, in case I want to look snazzy (dorky) with the goggles on. I already ordered a pair, so LET THE SCIENCE BEGIN! When they get here. Soon...

lol cool plan Kevin. Those will look pretty interesting on you I'm sure haha!

I have the same 3d glasses (came with the TV). Be cool to see how this turns out.

Lol. I am sure it will work. Just not so sure how comfortable it would be wearing goggles the entire time.

I've got the lenses cut out (and labeled for proper orientation) from one of the pairs of theater 3D glasses. Thin film indeed. It appears that they have to be looked through from the correct side, and they must be oriented so your vision is parallel with the polarization lines, or something like that. Basically you can have them at the intended angle or rotated 180 degrees, but if the lenses turn anywhere in between, you get color and stereoscopic effect distortion. I'll have to make sure they don't rotate in the goggles, and have a little notch or marking so I know what orientation to put them in at.

Have the 47 vizio 3d myself, was just thinking how lame the glasses looked.

Have the 47 vizio 3d myself, was just thinking how lame the glasses looked.

Yeah, that's the model I have, E3D470VX. Good TV aside from the one major issue I have with it: Game Mode can't be enabled with stereoscopic 3D modes enabled, so you get bad input lag. I've found a workaround, but it's not perfect. It involves quickly unplugging and replugging the HDMI cable until the lag goes away lol.

Project complete, and they turned out fairly well given what I had to work with. The lenses weren't quite large enough height-wise, so I cut them into round-edged rectangles that fit into the goggles fairly well. There's a little gap on the top and bottom between the rims and lenses, but it's not very noticeable while being worn.

The goggles:

Fitting the pieces together:

The result:

Before (boring normal stereoscopic 3D glasses):

After (badass stereoscopic 3D goggles):

They work perfectly fine. It takes a little work to get the lenses lined up just right so you have minimal distortion (effects like duplicate ghost images to the sides of an object), but the lens holders can be rotated (tightened or loosened), and with the lenses not filling the whole space I can grab the edges and turn them manually. The lenses didn't come out perfect, they're a bit scratched, but it's not too noticeable when looking through them. Plus it's easy enough to get another theater pair and make more lenses. There might even be some oversized 3D glasses out there that would fit just right. The rectangular shape is perfect though, for lining up the lenses to the proper angle needed for stereoscopic 3D. Overall I'm happy with the way these turned out.

Very nice DIY.

Yeah. Looks pretty awesome. The extra distance from your eyes didn't effect the viewing any?

Yeah. Looks pretty awesome. The extra distance from your eyes didn't effect the viewing any?

The distance between the lenses and my eyes doesn't affect much of anything, it's the angles of the lenses that have to be right for the effect to work optimally. I do have less peripheral vision with the enclosure of the goggles over my eyes, but when I'm wearing them I'll be looking forward at the TV.

Yeah. That's more of what I was wondering. Pretty cool.

Keving those look pretty badass. Maybe you should start an Etsy or something? I bet you could sell something like that.

Keving those look pretty badass. Maybe you should start an Etsy or something? I bet you could sell something like that.

Thanks, Mandy. They're honestly quite cheaply made. If bumped, the lenses could very easily come out of alignment and it's very difficult to keep the lenses clean with the cheap and flimsy material they're made out of. It's probably better this way, how many people have 3D glasses like these now?

I'm going to be brutally honest. They look quite ridiculous, but others' opinions don't matter as long as you dig them. I'm sure there's a market for them though. Grab a few extra pair of glasses and screw around with getting them to look better and I'll bet Mandy is right. They'd sell. Good on ya.

You nerd.